


i'm what's left when children go to war

by boykingfemme



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Ending, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Beekeeper Castiel (Supernatural), Domestic Fluff, Domestic Winchesters (Supernatural), EMT Dean Winchester, F/M, Fix-It, Fluff, Hunter/Librarian Eileen Leahy, M/M, Not Canon Compliant, Post-Canon, Post-Finale, Professor Sam Winchester, Self-Defense Instructor Castiel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-01
Updated: 2021-01-31
Packaged: 2021-03-18 19:00:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29123064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/boykingfemme/pseuds/boykingfemme
Summary: "They chose things the old fashioned Winchester way- throwing a dart at a map while blindfolded. Both their darts landed in Virginia, so the choice was made."God's dead and the Winchesters are ready for a fresh start.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester, Eileen Leahy/Sam Winchester
Comments: 4
Kudos: 18





	i'm what's left when children go to war

How many times was he going to turn around?

He was on the sixth, not that he was keeping count. (He was)

He was just making sure he knew what he was going to say. (He’d had the speech rehearsed for weeks)

He wanted to make sure the timing was right. (It was, and he knew it. Sam was in his room, had just gotten off a video call with Eileen, and had just opened some book about serial killers in the 1800’s that Dean knew he’d read before, and the time was right)

He turned around, knocking his elbow against the wall with a heavy thump.

“Dean?” his brother called. “You good out there, man?”

“Yeah, yeah, just…” he trailed off. Just walking in the exact wrong direction for my bedroom? Just watching you read secretly? He rubbed at the back of his neck sheepishly, forcing himself to move into the doorframe. “I wanted to talk to you about something actually.”

Sam’s eyebrows shot up, but he set his book on the table by the bed and sat up against the headboard. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah, yeah, it’s- it’s not like that,” he said with a frown. Their lives were really at the point where even the idea of a conversation created the assumption that something bad had happened. Or maybe that was just their relationship.  _ Not _ the time to think on that one. He took the question as an invitation and let himself into the room. He wasn’t sure when the last time he’d been in there was, but had there been so much… nothingness? The bedside table only had the one book and a lamp, the desk had one neat stack of papers, and a couple stacks of books sat on top of the shelf, the spines the only color against the blank white walls. He picked up one of the books. “What’s with the serial killer fetish, man? Don’t you read anything else?”

“It’s not a  _ fetish _ ,” he said, his lips pressing together in distaste as Dean found himself on the receiving end of a petulant bitch face. “It’s an interest. That one’s a good book.” 

“That’s an oxymoron,” Dean shot back on instinct.

“We all know you read even if you don’t admit it,” Sam said, and Dean shoved the serial killer fetish enabler back onto the shelf with more force than he needed to. “Get over here, come on.” He’d tossed one of the pillows to the other side of the bed against the footboard and pulled his feet up to sit cross-legged, and Dean couldn’t help but smile and take his place on the opposite end of the bed mirroring his brother, the way they always sat as kids. Back then, though, there would be one of the flashlights from Dad’s duffel sitting between them under the cheap quilt so it would be bright enough for them to see each other but not bright enough to wake Dad. They’d stay up like that whenever Dean got back from hunts before Sam started tagging along, and Sam would fill him in on everything he’d done in school and help patch up any smaller wounds Dean had been left with that Dad hadn’t worried about, and Dean would tell him about the monsters he’d fought and the heroics he’d  _ definitely _ performed that always made Sam laugh, and pester him about actually talking to one of the girls in his advanced math class or whatever. 

(The timing was right)

“How’s Eileen?” he asked instead. Did Sam know he smiled every time her name was mentioned?

“She doing good, she got the whole nest down actually,” Sam informed him, and he just sounded so damn proud. “Except two of them, though, who had never hurt anybody and ended up helping her gank the rest. Apparently they’re off to go buy a farm in the Smokies and go vegan or something. We’ll see, I guess.”

“You ever think about doing that?”

“Going vegan?” Sam asked, bewildered. “I… I mean I already, you know, did that.”

“Friggin’ rabbit food,” Dean muttered. The next time he bit into a burger and found sweet potatoes and black beans he was going to throw something. “But nah, I mean just… leaving. Getting a farm in the mountains and all that.” Sam was just staring at him, and he picked at the faded blue quilt they were sitting on. “Nevermind, I’m just-”

“I couldn’t do a farm,” Sam said suddenly. “I mean, it sounds nice and all, peaceful, but I think I’ve had enough of not having any neighbors for this lifetime.”

“The rest, though?”

Sam was watching him again, and Dean couldn’t tell what he was looking for. “You’re thinking about it?”

“I’m gettin’  _ old _ , man. I don’t- hunters die young, die bloody. Hell, I’ll be as old as Dad was when he-” He blew out a long breath. “I didn’t think I’d get here,” he said honestly, “I mean realistically. I’ve died a half dozen times, so really, I  _ didn’t _ get this far. I didn’t think this far ahead, but I just… Is this it?”

“What are you saying, Dean?”

“I don’t think I want to do this forever,” he whispered. “I don’t want to die a hunter.”

“You’re really ready for that?” Sam asked. “I mean, you, you want… normal? Apple pie, white picket fence, normal?”

“Hey, I’ve done my time.” He didn’t mean to get defensive, not really, but he’d thought this through, dammit. “I went to Hell, Sam, I’ve been to Heaven and Hell and Purgatory, and we’ve saved the world over and over, and I’ve done enough. Can’t a man want anything more than that?”

“No, no, I just-” He climbed off the bed so fast he almost tripped. He pulled a drawer out from his desk and the whole thing creaked, the wall rotating slowly, so slowly.   


“You put a secret room back there?” he had to ask. “Dude.”

“It was already here. Anyway,” he continued, pointing to the other side of the wall that had replaced his desk. “I’ve been doing some research.”

“Shocker.”

“And I was thinking-”

“Double shocker-” “Shut up. Anyway-”

“Those are houses.” Dean blinked, as though the printed out pictures would suddenly disappear each time he opened his eyes. “You’ve been… househunting?”

“I never planned on hunting forever,” Sam reminded him, and God, he almost forgot that sometimes. It had been over fifteen years since he’d dragged him out of Stanford, fifteen more years than Sam had ever planned on, even if he hadn’t talked about it in years. “I’ve just been waiting until you were ready, too, you know? What’s a few years in the end, anyway.”  _ What’s a few years beside a few hundred, _ was implied. “So I started looking into what we’d need to do, and I didn’t really stop, I guess. And I don’t think it would be that hard, anyway, we’d just have to change our names since we, you know, don’t technically exist and are also wanted by the FBI, but-” he cut off with a worried look. “What?”

He bit at a smile. “Those are paint chips, Sammy.”

“And?"

“And they’re all the exact same color.”

“They are  _ not _ ,” Sam insisted. “See, this one’s way more blue but this one’s almost yellow-”

“They’re all white. They’re all the exact same color, it makes no difference, and I am not living in a house that’s painted  _ white _ .”

“They’re colors for the baseboards, idiot, and the shade for the baseboards completely changes your options for what color you paint your walls,” he said matter-of-factly, like Dean was supposed to already know useless information about shades of white and painting houses. “I mean, you wouldn’t use this one-” he pointed to one of the squares taped to the whiteboard “- if you’re going to paint your walls a warm color. Look, the colors aren’t the point, okay? We can go over those later. If you would stop laughing- I’m serious, Dean, stop laughing- I’ve talked to Eileen about this, too.”

Dean shut up at that. “You’ve already talked to Eileen about it?”

“I wasn’t going to plan all this without her. She’s not ready to stop hunting, but she was thinking she’d be up for just hunting on weekends, so we could all settle down, you know? We could be neighbors, you and Cas could get one house and Eileen and I could get the one next door, and we could fence our yards in together even, if we wanted."

“I think I want that,” he said. And he did. He really did.

They chose things the old fashioned Winchester way- throwing a dart at a map while blindfolded. Both their darts landed in Virginia, so the choice was made. 

They fought for days about what to bring from the bunker until Eileen reminded them that they could just rent a U-Haul like the rest of the world instead of trying to fit everything into the Impala, and Sam and Cas had packed half of it top to bottom with books, and that was most of what they brought. 

Dean left his guns in the bunker. His Colt that he’d had since he was a teenager was locked in the bottom compartment of the trunk beside Sam’s Taurus and Eileen’s personal arsenal, and in the trailer lay all their favorite things they’d found in the bunker that they could put back up in their new houses, and on top of those were duffel bags that were only half full, because Sam had insisted they wouldn’t really be moving on if they brought all the clothes that had been torn to shreds by the monster of the week that they only kept because they never had time to stop for new ones. 

They’d have  _ time _ now, and that was the weirdest thing. The trip to Virginia took five days, just because they could. They only drove a few hours each day, stopping off in towns that looked nice and pulled over to the side of the road to have a drink and watch the sun set every night. Eileen insisted on introducing Cas to the wonders of polaroid cameras, so every couple hours the angel would suddenly reach over to lay his hand over Dean’s on the wheel, and he’d pull off so Cas could take a picture of whatever he’d caught sight of that time. 

Cas had gotten one picture of Dean and Sam sitting on the hood of the Impala clinking their bottles together when they hadn’t realized anyone was watching, and he would never admit it, but it was folded in half and tucked behind his credit cards, and he doubted it would be going anywhere any time soon. 

It was a little town called Charlottesville when Sam decided the time was right. (It was)

God, he’d been planning it for months, keeping the ring in his pocket all the time just in case the moment came. He’d bought the ring brand new from a Tiffany store in Ohio. (Because he’d had enough of second hand happiness, and so had Eileen, and they’d had enough of second hand memories)

It was a simple ring, a slim gold band with a single diamond set in the middle, and he couldn’t wait to see it on her finger. He’d dreamed of doing something perfect and romantic, taking her to a rose garden or a waterfall or the top of the Eiffel tower, but that simply wasn’t how things worked for Winchesters.

They were out for breakfast- Dean was sleeping in for once, and Cas had taken to watching over him again, so they were on their own. They’d found a diner and sat outside, and they’d ordered stacks of pancakes that ended up being big enough to feed an entire village, and she was sitting there signing to him with the hand that didn’t hold her coffee while she talked earnestly about the future, and the moment had come while the sun was barely peeking high enough to stream through her hair and form a halo around her head. 

_ Marry me, _ he signed, dropping to one knee and reaching for her hand. “Marry me,” he repeated. 

She yanked her hand away, and  _ God, the time was wrong, the time was wrong _ , but she reached into her coat and pulled out a tiny box with a grin that stretched over her entire face.

“Marry  _ me _ ,” she said, opening it to reveal a gold band. 

“Yes,” he breathed, slipping her ring onto her finger and letting her do the same to him. He leaned up and kissed her. “Yes, yes.”

He doubted they’d ever be able to truly marry, seeing as he was legally dead, but that wasn’t what mattered. He didn’t let go of her hand, their rings shining on their fingers, not while they finished their coffee or paid their bill or took the most stupidly long way back to their motel, and he was pretty sure Dean knew from the moment they walked into the room, wrapping him in a bear hug and whispering  _ congratulations _ in his ear while Eileen showed off her ring to Cas. 

The town they’d ended up choosing was called Fredericksburg, and it was… well, honestly, it was  _ pretty _ . It was a pretty town- not too big or too small, with a nice downtown and a farmers’ market that Sam tracked down the first day, when they were still in a motel, and he dragged cas there with him.

“She had  _ bees _ , Dean,” Cas kept saying. “She had her own bees and collected her own honey. She was  _ surrounded _ with bees.”

Dean had turned to Sam, wondering if Cas had finally learned about exaggeration, but Sam just nodded. “Maybe we can find you some bees,” he suggested. Cas glowed at that, and Dean vowed to find somewhere to buy bees as soon as they had a place for them.

Apparently Sam had done a lot more research than Dean had realized, because he had an agent, Emily, lined up before they even got to town, they’d made new fakes in Illinois and written up fake employment records in Indiana, and the real estate agent just smiled when Sam explained they were looking for two houses beside each other, and it was all going so fast that Dean felt like his head was going to explode.

“How do you feel about ranchers?” Emily was asking them, and somehow Sam had tracked down the one realtor who knew sign language, so he let Sam and her deal with the specifics and dragged Cas through the house, testing out sinks and opening cabinets the way he’d seen Lisa do when they’d moved all those years ago, and Cas followed suit. Dean doubted he knew what he was looking for.

It wasn’t the house for them- they’d all had to duck under the doorways, and Eileen said there was water damage in the bedroom- but it was starting to feel real. And it felt good.


End file.
